Feds sue Florida over care of children in nursing homes
Florida healthcare agencies have acted with deliberate indifference to the suffering of frail and disabled children by offering parents no meaningful choice but to warehouse their children in nursing homes along with elders, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a lawsuit against the state filed Monday.
The Justice Departments civil-rights division accused the state of violating the landmark 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act which forbids discrimination against people with special needs by funding and managing its community programs so poorly that hundreds of children have been forced to live, and sometimes grow up, in institutions for the elderly.
Last September, the Justice Department told state health administrators that Floridas system of care for frail and disabled children was discriminatory, because it failed to offer parents meaningful opportunities to care for their medically fragile children outside large, segregated institutions. While the state made half-hearted reforms, the DOJ said, the discrimination persisted.
The Justice Department, the lawsuit says, has determined that compliance with the ADA cannot be secured by voluntary means by the state. The DOJ is asking a federal judge to declare the states program for disabled children in violation of federal law and to force the state to cease warehousing children in institutions.
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/07/22/3514304/feds-sue-florida-over-care-of.html#storylink=cpy